


The Malignant Dead

by frangipani



Series: Halloween [5]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Halloween Challenge, JAT timeline, Luke Skywalker isn't afraid of the dark, Tatooinian folklore, fuck that guy, ghost story, guess the homage, it's not a movie, no Exar Kun, real world things i call by other names, sorta canon divergent, until he fucking is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frangipani/pseuds/frangipani
Summary: Luke Skywalker and sticky ghosts. A JAT- inspired ghost story





	The Malignant Dead

**Author's Note:**

> This fills prompt #3 of the Halloween challenge I'm doing with my bud [strangeallure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeallure/pseuds/strangeallure). For some reason this one was a real pain in the ass to write. Hopefully, it was just the nature of the prompt and the next one will be easier. I've played with the EU timelines -- yes, I know Kyp should be here already, but I didn't want a Pile On, so for this fic's purposes he hasn't arrived yet, my ghosts are different from canon's, etc. As always disclaimer for light editing.

Luke rubbed the bridge of his nose. The words of the text he’d been trying to read swam in his vision. With a sigh, he closed the document. 

The rest of it would have to wait for tomorrow. He’d had a gundark of a day, trading off messages with Coruscant about commemorative rites for the Eol Sha, the colony recently obliterated by Admiral Daala, just a few weeks after they’d resettled on Datooine. Luke had just gotten a chance to sit and go over some of Tionne’s more recent notes on Master Vodo-Siosk Bass’ life. Tomorrow he'd have his morning session with the apprentices, and then he had to get on a holocomm with Coruscant to continue discussing the details of the ceremony.

Luke went through his evening routine and settled in his bed. After they were done, there’d probably be senate inquiries into the Academy. A few senators had already vented their ire that the last remaining member of the Eol Sha had been found dead in the academy. A whole people. Gone.

Hard to assimilate, Luke thought as he waited for sleep to come. He’d promised Gantoris a safe place for his people. The ache, buried during hours of commitments, working through minutiae and logistics, put aside for study, came back to life, mingling with the hollow ache of losing him, his first apprentice.

Luke closed his eyes. This was not the time to pore over his death. What happened to Gantoris had nothing to do with the genocide of his people. It had been a tragedy of Gantoris’ own making, born out of his own impulsiveness. He had paid dearly for it.

Selfish as it was to think, Luke had been paying for it, too. He shifted in his bed and made an effort to relax. These thoughts could spiral down darker, destructive paths. He couldn’t risk that, now of all times, when all eyes were on him. 

Luke cleared his thoughts, focused on the hum of the environmental controls and evened out his breathing.

The light controls were still set to dark when he woke. Something felt off around him. He reached to the Force, by instinct, but everything felt normal there. A sense of being watched and a weird prickle across his skin however, did not. 

Luke focused his eyes on the gray of the room. Most of the tiny space was visible from his bed. It had been one of the high command quarters on the upper levels of the Great Temple, the equivalent of a one-room apartment, outfitted with not just a ‘fresher, but a small kitchenette. 

Luke made to look at his bedside table. What time was it anyway?

He couldn’t look. His head was frozen. He couldn’t move at all. 

Surprised, he tried to draw on the Force more deeply -- only to feel pressure at his chest, a sensation as if something heavy was pushing down on it, pushing _him_ down into his mattress. He could see nothing. There was nothing. He couldn’t breathe.

Luke reached for the Force again. 

It wouldn’t come, though he felt something, but his grasp was slipping. A cold disordered feeling shot through him. There was something on him, something he couldn’t dislodge. Something malicious.

He tried to scoot away, shove his elbows back and sit up.

His body wouldn’t respond.

What was happening? Why couldn’t he move? He reached again and again for the Force, finding it elusive, his own distress growing. 

Suddenly, his paralysis vanished, leaving him shaking in cold sweat. Luke jolted up to a sitting position, panting. A nightmare? But he’d been awake for all of it. He rubbed at his face. Had to have been a nightmare.

Nightmares weren’t exactly a rarity for him, but a waking nightmare was new. He concentrated on breathing for a few moments, slid back into his bed, turned his thoughts elsewhere, and willed himself to sleep.

\--

“It’s not a bad idea,” Kam told him, squinting in the midday sunlight that poured down Yavin’s blue skies as they sat on one of the lower side steps. “I think they’re doing well for the most part, but it doesn’t hurt.”

Luke had been floating the idea of check-ins with the apprentices. It’d been two months since the accident. Luke had thought they had taken everything in stride, all things considered. “I don’t want to stir anything up, but it's a good idea to see how they're doing.” He took a bite from the curried bread roll that was the day’s lunch.

Light within the temple being artificial, almost everyone prefered to spend the daylight hours outside. Students and workers would grab lunch from the mess hall and bring it out onto the lawn. Luke spied Tionne looking over at Kam. Luke felt a bit guilty about whisking him away to talk academy business, but Luke had his mornings full with lessons, and Kam would take on all the afternoon sessions.

”You’re thinking about it. About him,” Kam said, serious as always. “Gantoris.”

“I can’t not,” Luke admitted. “Especially with Coruscant and the Eol Sha memorial.” He exhaled. All those back and forths with Coruscant had been eating at him more than he’d realized. “But if you think this is a waste of time or counterproductive--”

”No, I think it’s a good idea to get a sense of where they are with this.” Kam stared off to the beings scattered across the lawn while Luke finished his roll and started on his second. “What about you?”

Luke sagged a little, knowing Kam was switching back to the previous topic. “I’ll be happy once the Senate closes with this memorial.” Once that happened, he could turn his focus entirely on teaching. It wouldn’t feel like rubbing at an open wound every single day.

”What happened with Gantoris...” Kam met his eyes. ”You know it’s not your fault. It’s not easy, starting from scratch, with so many beings from so many different backgrounds. You're doing well.”

Luke bowed his head and played with the wrapper around the roll for a moment. Kam meant well. “I don’t know.” He forced a smile as he raised his head. “Always room for improvement.”

\--

Luke thought about the conversation with Kam as he settled in for his meditation.

Kam had been right, he knew rationally. There had been no way Luke could have prevented Gantoris from approaching lightsaber construction in such a rushed manner. He hadn’t even known Gantoris would try to assemble his blade so quickly. Gantoris had made that decision by himself, and, overconfident in his abilities, had put the parts together with too much haste--

He stopped his thoughts there. Knowing all this was different from _feeling_ it, and if his feelings were leading to waking nightmares, then that was something he’d have to keep dealing with.

After completing his meditation, Luke crawled into bed. The arrangements with Coruscant were nearly finished. Once they were done, he’d have some time to regroup for himself. 

He wasn’t quite sure when he slid into sleep, but he awoke too early again, the room still dark, his covers half off him. He wasn’t cold, in fact he felt a sudden heat flash through him. The silence in the room rang in his ears, and there it was again. 

The presence.

A few paces away, possibly to his left.

Luke couldn’t turn his head to look. He couldn’t move at all. Dread flooded him as something fell on him, pinning him down.

Luke reached towards the Force. The Force was there, he _felt_ it, clawed for it, but he couldn’t grasp it, and the pressure in his chest only increased, the full weight of something pushing his breath out of his lungs. His mind stuttered over the fact that this presence was _on him_ , he just couldn’t see it. His head was locked, turned to the right as if cemented in duracrete.

An eternity later he shifted. He _could_ shift and sat up. Luke reached out through the Force. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He only felt the students and a few workers and techs, flashes from life in the jungle beyond. Everything was normal. His breath was still coming in gasps, his pulse fast in his ears.

How much time had passed?

Luke shut his eyes tight and rubbed at his face. Another waking nightmare? 

He’d felt _something_ real, hadn’t he?

His thoughts were pulled to what Gantoris had told him when they’d first met at Eol Sha, his broad face severe, absent of eyelashes or eyebrows, hair gathered into a black braid flowing down the left side of his face.

_I have dreamed of you. A dark man who offers me incredible secrets, then destroys me. I am lost if I go with you._

Luke shivered, his skin clammy with sweat. Sometimes Luke had wondered if Gantoris had been right.

No, he shook himself. It hadn’t been Luke’s darkness that brought about Gantoris’ end, it'd been Gantoris’ own. His own arrogance and stubbornness. 

Luke opened and closed his hands on his knees. He hadn’t known to what degree that Gantoris had dismissed his call for patience. He hadn’t. The Force must have been warning Gantoris all along too.

Luke stood up and went to the ‘fresher to wash his face. Back in bed he forced himself to sleep until he did.

\--

Luke threw himself into the check-ins with the apprentices over the next few days, even as the waking nightmares continued, intensified. He more or less managed to get himself to sleep after each episode, though sleep proved more difficult to find with each night. Was he in the right frame of mind to conduct check-ins with the apprentices? But Luke had already failed to look after one apprentice. He couldn’t risk missing the struggling of another.

Out of all the students, Dorsk 81, the Khommite green-yellow skinned clone, was the most affected. He spoke in the same neutral cadence as always, but the Force was heavy with sorrow.

“I would have died that time at the hot spring,” Dorsk said quietly as they sat by the small waterfalls Luke prefered to meet the apprentices at for their chats. “Boiled alive during an exercise. But he reached towards me. He said he knew I would be stronger.”

It’d been _his_ exercise, the one Luke had arranged for them. Doubt niggled at him. Had the exercise been too much? He’d been reaching to protect Dorsk himself when Gantoris had intervened. Dorsk hadn’t been in genuine danger. He remembered feeling pleased when Gantoris had helped him. Afterwards he’d praised Gantoris, hoping this meant he was finally moving past his standoffishness.

Gantoris had brushed the words off. “Master Skywalker—you are not the dark man who haunted my nightmares on Eol Sha,” he’d said. “I know that now.”

Perhaps he should have stopped Gantoris then, counseled him.

Would he have even listened?

“He shouldn’t have died,” Dorsk said, pulling Luke back.

“No,” Luke agreed. “He shouldn’t have.”

\--

“They aren't nightmares like I've had before,” he grudgingly told his sister over the holocomm a few days later. “I’m awake. Just...can’t move.”

To his surprise his sister’s concerned expression gave slightly. “Oh! I’ve had that happen. It has a name. I don’t remember it. It’s actually very common.” 

Luke cocked his head at her blue holographic form. “Really?” 

Leia nodded. “Your mind is awake but your body’s asleep. It leads to hallucinations. Very short episodes, no longer than a few minutes each. I hated them. Brought on by stress, weird sleeping times, too much caf--”

“I’m not having any of that.”

His sister just looked at him.

”Okay, a little stress.”

“How are you holding up with the Eol Sha remembrance? Apart from the sleep, eating okay?”

He flashed her a small smile. “You know me. That doesn’t change. I’m been eating fine.” His smile vanished. “I’ll just be glad when the remembrance is done. I don't know...this might be a delayed reaction to that. Working with all the reminders probably generates the episodes. I’m hoping now that it’s done, it’ll be over.”

“I hope so too, but Luke, if you’re having that much trouble sleeping,” she started. “You really should consider a break.”

“You know I can’t do that. It’s only going to call more attention to what happened here. It’d be a mess. SoBilles said he wasn’t able to dissuade the council from calling for a committee to conduct an investigation into Gantoris. ”

Leia’s shoulders slumped slightly. He wasn’t surprised she knew. “I can’t believe they’re wasting their time with this when there’s so much real work to be done. Tell me they’re not making you come here.”

“I don’t think so. SoBilles mentioned they’d try to keep it to reports. From me and the apprentices, medical personnel, that sort of thing. But with the council keeping such a close eye, the best I can do is to try and keep things normal around here.”

“Well, try not to wear yourself out too much,” she said and soon they closed the comm.

Luke stood up from the chair and stretched. What he hadn’t mentioned to his sister was that after a week of the episodes, he had stopped falling back asleep. It was his connection to the Force, the slipperiness of it during those episodes that bothered him the most. He was right; it was just the burden of everything. With time it’d go away.

He shivered. The control rooms were being kept too cold. He should probably talk to someone in maintenance. 

At the side of of the projector, the twilight outside the feed from the holocamms in the comm control room appeared vaguely ominous. He should talk to the workers so that the screens wouldn’t automatically turn on, too. All that automatic security monitoring was just a waste of power.

The past several nights had been difficult. He didn’t know why he’d been unable to sleep. Every time an episode ended, he’d go wash his face then return to bed. Up until two nights ago, it had been fine but now, when he tried to fall asleep...it just didn’t happen. His thoughts grew murky, but never drifted towards sleep. He lay there caught in an overwhelming feeling of dread, feeling it slither beneath his skin. 

As he walked out of the command center and took the turbolift up to his room, he thought the reason was obvious. Caught in the twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, his tension was getting the best of him. No wonder the Force was elusive. Control, already shaky in that vague state, was rendered shakier still by the disquiet. 

It fed on itself. The more off-center he felt, the less control he had, the more likely he was to find himself in the clutches of his own worries.

His personal demons.

The phrasing had never seemed more appropriate.

\--

Later that night another shivering wake-up had him opt for his desk. He found himself on his datapad, toggling back to the material he’d been reading. The condition was called somnopalsy or waking atonia. Given that it had a basis in human biology, Luke soon discovered the disturbed sleeping patterns had all sorts of cultural myths attached to it. 

On Chandrila they believed an evil shadow would come and hold victims down to feed on their panic. His eye scanned down. Over at Brentaal IV the paralysis was attributed to a gnome binding the victim to their bed with their sorcery, and on Ganthel it was thought of as an invisible snake coiling around its prey and squeezing. 

“Some cultures think of it as getting possessed,” he told Han later that week. “Tinnelians, I think. By a heavy demon.”

Han was nodding. “Oh yeah, called it a wraith’s embrace back in Corellia.” He made a face. “Real creepy.” 

Luke shrugged. “It’s all just legends to explain something that happens when your body’s out of sync. I should have asked Leia what they’d said about it on Alderaan. I didn’t find anything about that yet.”

”You sure you should be reading this stuff if you’re having trouble sleeping, kid?”

Luke flashed Han a mildly irritated look. “I’m not having trouble sleeping because I’m scared. I’m having trouble sleeping because I’m out of sync.”

”And this helps?”

”It helps to know it happens,” he replied tersely, and immediately regretted his tone. He’d been depending on refreshing techniques for the past days, and they were already beginning to wear thin. “Makes me feel less weird about it.”

Han’s expression was sympathetic. “Ain’t nothing weird about it with all the stress on you.”

Luke had to look away. “Just...it hasn’t happened before.”

”You haven’t lost a student before.”

Luke made himself nod.

”Wasn’t your doing--”

”I know,” he told him, not willing to go down that path. “I didn’t find anything that mentioned Tatooine, though and I don’t remember anything either.” Luke hadn’t been surprised; his texts mostly focused on human-predominant Core worlds. 

Some annoyance came over Han’s face at the change in subject, but he sighed. “Nothing? Really?” Apparently, Han had decided to humor him. “Nothing about spirits coming at you at night?”

”Oh, spirits sure. Back home there was a bunch of that talk. Just nothing about anything that holds you down in bed.” Luke thought back to old legends. “My aunt would tell me about spirits wandering the desert at night or in a sandstorm.” Desert ghosts, he remembered her saying, were sticky like sweat and worse than any others the galaxy over. He didn’t doubt there had been some homeworld pride in that. “Nothing like a wraith or a gnome or a demon.” 

“Still nasty, right?” Han supplied, leaning back. “Wouldn’t be that sort of legend if they weren’t.”

Luke had to nod. Of all the desert legends, the malignant dead were the stickiest. “Some of them would follow...a traveler who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Attach themselves to them, and mess with them. When the traveler ate, they’d still be hungry. They’d sleep,” he flashed Han a pointed look, “but remain tired. That sort of thing.” In cold nights, the malignant dead would suck their victim’s body heat off, Luke remembered his aunt telling him. During the days, they would wrap around their victims like a shroud so that they could never cool off, no matter how much they tried.

Han chuckled. “So this haunted person would sleep okay.”

”They'd think they had slept, but be tired all day.”

”That’s pretty bad too,” Han said, and moved on to talking about the twins’ latest exploits.

Much later as Luke readied himself for bed he realized he hadn’t thought about that legend in years. His aunt had stopped telling it when he was a teenager, though he still spied it under the half smile she gave him when she asked him not to come back too late. 

Luke yawned. Han had been right; he certainly wasn’t helping himself thinking about that stuff, and refreshing techniques weren’t a long-term solution. He was a Jedi Master. He rubbed at his temples, embarrassment creeping over him. It was high time he started acting like one, even if he was feeling nowhere close to it. 

After a brief meditation session he was back in his bed, trying to keep his thoughts light, away from the dread of a presence. One of the paths from the Great Temple led to a small cave, a lagoon with bright blue water along a beach pebbled with green rocks. He thought of that as he fell asleep.

Thunk. Thunk.

Luke stood in a vaguely rounded room, bits of wire and crates of droid parts scattered about, the tang of metal and servomotor oil in the air. The garage. His garage. Home.

Thunk. Thunk.

Among all the machinery Luke could only see a bit of his uncle’s tunic. He sat on a workbench a few feet away, pounding on something with a microhammer in entirely too rhythmic blows. 

Thunk. Thunk.

“Uncle Owen?” Luke called softly, unsettled, but his uncle didn’t stop what he was doing. Luke tentatively drew closer, cold dread slinking into him. The unnatural regularity of the pounding both drew him and repelled him. It was his uncle, he told himself. Only his uncle working in the garage as he always did. Luke called louder, “Uncle Owen?”

Thunk. Thunk.

Luke crept forward, footsteps quiet on the ground. Why hadn’t he answered? For some reason, Luke didn’t want to call again. Something was wrong. Everything was familiar, from the layout of the shelving units to the stains on the workbench to his left, but he couldn’t shake that something wasn’t right, like some toxic vapor invisible to the naked eye, creeping into him.

Thunk. Thunk.

What if that figure only looked like his uncle, he found himself thinking. What if he took a closer look and find it wasn’t his uncle at all, but something ghastly wearing his tunic, his body--

Thunk. Thunk.

Luke had come around the crate. His uncle wore his familiar weathered tunic, hair plastered to his face in sweat as he pounded the microhammer down onto a venbolt on a servomotor gear. Luke’s dread vanished as if it had never been there. 

His uncle stopped, microhammer raised. “Get me that crate at your feet, will you, Luke?” he asked without looking up. 

“Okay.” Luke picked it up. As he did, he saw a mass of writhing insects where there should have been machinery: red-brown sectioned bodies, arced tails and pincers. Scorpions!

Luke dropped the crate with a cry. His uncle was no longer in front of him and now there was a sea of scorpions at his feet, beginning a slow climb up his leg. He jumped back --

He couldn’t move.

There were so many, the writhing throng of them rising to imprison him, bury him under their bodies.

Luke woke up thrashing, sheets bunched around his feet. He shoved himself into a sitting position, breathing hard.

It might not have been another episode, but that dream hadn’t been better at all. He rose from the bed, passing a hand over his face. Dawn was growing milky white outside the windows. Exhaustion wore at him at the thought of the day to come.

There really wasn’t much choice but to employ refreshing techniques again.

\--

More nights passed with an episode each. Luke tried everything that had worked before, long meditations, light reading, relaxation exercises. Nothing worked and he was forced to rely on refreshing techniques to able to go about his day.

That was its own hazard. After several days, Luke felt as if he were plugging a high pressure leak with his finger. The exhaustion encroached bit by bit on his waking life, making his thoughts murky and slippery. He didn’t think anyone had noticed yet, but it’d only be a matter of time.

Aware he couldn’t continue, he excused himself from lunch, taking some food up to his quarters after finishing with his morning sessions. In his room, he tried settling to sleep. It had been weeks of sleepless nights by this point. He closed his eyes. 

Sometime later he woke with a sound. The room lights’ afternoon settings gave the room a murky gray pall. He meant to sit up.

Luke couldn’t, and before he could accommodate to the fact, heavy silence swept over the room, over him. The presence lurked...there, a hazy darkness at the corner of his eye. It was going to--

A hard stone-weight fell upon him, he _heard_ the thud of it landing on him, forcing the air out of his body. It was on him, above him, pressing down. He heard a breath, a deep exhale near so near to his ear that he expected to feel it. He couldn’t breathe. 

He wanted to squirm and thrash, the impulse like screaming in his head. 

Something dug at his neck. Hard.

Luke woke up with a yell. He sat up straight, sweat-soaked and shaking, the sheets kicked down at his ankles. His hand felt around his neck. What the kriff was that? It'd felt like --

His comm sounded and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Yes?” he gasped into it.

“We have a request for landing,” the tech said, a bit of surprise in his voice. Luke grimaced. “Not on the schedule. We checked with Keyen already. He said to comm you. It’s a Z-95. Pilot identifies as a Mara Jade. Says she’s a prospective apprentice.” 

Luke rubbed at his face. How could things get _worse_? Mara? Now? 

“Master Skywalker?”

“Luke is fine,” he mumbled half automatically as he examined his neck with his hand again. Fingers digging into his windpipe. Solid. No, there couldn’t be. He needed to get a grip on himself. “She is. She’s a prospective apprentice. I invited her. Go ahead and clear her.” 

“Will do. Probable landing in about forty minutes give or take.” The tech closed the line.

Luke stayed sitting, comm in hand, his mind finally piecing together that the tech meant he should be there. He should, of course, Mara was coming. Had she told him she would? He couldn't remember. Still dazed from the nightmare, his head was fogged up like transparisteel in the mornings, his senses unmoored. A shiver seized him, cold sweat making his skin clammy. Get a grip. Now.

He pushed himself off the bed and to the ‘fresher, leaned over to splash his face with water. A dark shadow at the corner of his eye. He straightened up, adrenaline shooting through him. It was nothing.

Clenching a hand, Luke glanced at the chrono, he’d slept just under an hour. It’d only made things worse. No, thinking like that wasn't helping. He was going to go and greet Mara. It was a good thing she was here. He'd invited her months ago, maybe...

He used a refreshing technique to clear his head.

\--

You look...tired,” Mara told him later that evening during dinner. He’d gone around the tables to introduce her to the rest of the apprentices. That done, the two of them sat discreetly at one of the side tables to eat and catch up.

Luke summoned a smile as he finished his plate, this was not how he'd wanted their chat to go. On top of that, someone had set the environmental control too low and cold had steadily been creeping across his skin since he’d left his room and part of him kept struggling against the impulse to wrap his arms around himself. “It’s been a rough first term,” he conceded. "But things are --"

Mara took another bite of her own meal. “Teaching not what you thought?”

“Oh no, nothing like that,” he waved a hand, “ just the administrative overhead.”

“I thought they gave you people for that.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You still have to manage them.”

“Ah, right.” Her eyes darted to his empty plate. “Well, at least it hasn’t affected your appetite. Whenever I...ah...have a lot of pressure. Usually that’s the first thing to go.”

Luke stared at her curiously. He didn’t know Mara all that well -- not by design, he did count her as a friend, but the circumstances had made it so shortly after the Thrawn campaign she’d been busy learning the ropes of working with the Smuggler’s Alliance, and he’d been busy with preparations for the academy. Their paths hadn’t intersected as much as he would have liked. 

She was looking down at her plate. “And after what happened...”

Luke stiffened.

Mara looked up, features almost in a wince for a split second. “I mean, from what I heard. It was an accident, right,” she said quickly. “People make stupid decisions when they get just a little taste of power. It--you can’t control people’s decisions.” She closed her mouth, tightening her lips as she looked back down at her plate.

“Anyway, Karrde had a bit of a lull, and I thought this was a good time to brush up on my skills,” she mumbled and took another bite of her meal.

“I’m glad,” Luke said. He wasn’t surprised Mara had known about Gantoris, though it stung a bit to think about just how far the news might have gone, the types of things that might be being said about him, about the academy. He shouldn’t even care. The tragedy of it was enough. 

“What is it?” Mara's voice drew him back. 

He shook his head. “I was about to get another plate. You want anything?” 

Something passed through Mara’s face too quick for him to grasp. She snorted. “The Force burns a lot of calories, I take it.”

“Leia was just mentioning the eating thing,” he told her. “ If I stopped eating she’d probably send someone.” He put his hands around his mug of tea, its warmth was pleasant compared to the chilly air. “I’m going to have to talk to someone," he found himself blurting out. "It’s really cold in here.”

Mara flashed him an odd look. “Really? Seems fine to me.”

“I’m freezing, but if it’s just me…” He looked around, no one else seemed to be huddled in their seats. He took a distracted sip of his tea, and pulled back as the heat bit into his tongue. He made a frustrated noise.

“You okay?” 

Chagrined, Luke nodded. The evening was in a tailspin. “Too hot. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I’m just...distracted.” He pushed his tray forward, ignoring Mara’s stare and his own sinking feeling. This was the worst time for her to come. He wouldn't blame her if she turned around and left.

“I should probably turn in for the night,” he told her tightly. As if losing sleep wasn’t enough. His refreshing techniques _were_ wearing thin, he was certain. And he still had no way to avoid the episodes. What would it be like tonight? Cold dread squeezed him like a hand on his windpi--

Stop it.

“Luke?”

He forced a bland smile. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk more tomorrow. I’m--I’m happy you’re here,” he told her and took his tray, ignoring her confused stare.

At the door of the mess, he saw a flash of something, dark and arachnid with a high-curved tail, scurrying away into a darkened crevice. A scorpion?

Catching himself, Luke let out a quiet grunt. In all his time in the Great Temple he'd _never_ seen a scorpion within its walls.

His sleep-starved mind was playing tricks on him.

Again.

\--

In his quarters a short while later Luke sat at his desk, pulled up the index of Jedi he'd compiled. He found several meditations on guilt. That's what it was, wasn't it? He just needed to face that fully in himself.

Overwhelming feelings of regret, the text began, chain us to our past and preclude us from living an authentic pres--

He broke off thinking he saw movement at the edge of his vision. Luke lifted his head. Frowning, Luke returned to his reading, burrowing into his cloak. Even the temp controls in his room were too cold. 

Overwhelming feelings of regret--

A shadow fell over the datapad screen.

Luke gasped and shot up, the seat falling behind him in the violence of the movement. 

For a minute he stood, his breaths loud in the stillness of his room. Why was this happening? He _was_ dealing with this, _had been_ dealing with this over and over since it had happened and it even hadn't been his fault. He'd warned Gantoris about his pride, and he hadn't listened. 

It hadn't been his fault that Daala had chosen to attack Dantooine. There was no way he could have known. He'd only had their best interests in mind--

His breaths were coming fast and Luke found himself pacing. This had to stop. 

_Overwhelming feelings of regret…_

Without thinking it, Luke left his room, hit the access panel, and walked out into the corridors.

Gantoris had been buried in a field adjacent to the temple. They'd given him a ritual, he and the apprentices. The place where it happened and his room hadn't been sealed off. There was no need; everyone stayed away. Luke had meant to work on the anguish-soaked area where he’d died, to draw on the Force to pacify the echoes, but he hadn't found the time yet.

Maybe the Force was telling him the time to start was now.

Luke boarded the turbolift. Impulsively he pressed the button for the second level living quarters, a detour. 

Lights came on as he walked down the corridor, past the access doors to the barracks. As he entered the officer’s section, Luke's footsteps were the only sound, the silence heavy and absolute. This late most of the apprentices had retired to their rooms.

_Once they stick to you, you can never rid yourself of the malignant dead_ ,the thought poured into Luke in his aunt’s soft voice, _You can bind them to another creature, but they always remain._

He didn’t believe in that, he reminded himself, tightening his cloak around himself. No Jedi texts spoke of these kinds of spirits. No Jedi texts spoke of spirits, period. His own experience with Force ghosts felt entirely different. Force ghosts were knowable entities -- Ben Kenobi was Ben Kenobi, his father was his father, perceivable as themselves through the Force, even if through a haze. The malignant dead weren't really themselves anymore, they'd transformed into something else. Something unrecognizable. 

Finally, Luke arrived at his apprentice’s room. It wasn’t much, only the bare necessities, a cot, a desk, and some storage containers. The public ‘freshers were at the end of the hall. 

Gantoris’ room was as he’d left it. Luke hadn’t had the time to deal with it, and he hadn’t wanted to assign anyone else to do it. His eye scanned the room, found a datapad still lying on the cot, a vermilion rug on the floor by the cot, a couple of robes in translucent containers by the desk. With curdling shame he realized that he hadn’t even thought about it. 

All the friends he’d lost over the years, even his aunt and uncle...he’d never really managed the aftermath of a death. Even the farm, he’d entrusted to the Darklighters. There had never been enough time, but that hadn’t been the whole story. 

And now...Luke shut his eyes, slowly sitting on the edge of Gantoris’ cot. It wasn’t like then, and he wasn’t the boy he’d been; he should have _made_ time. Maybe that’s what the Force was telling him. It would mean some sort of closure to find a place for the few things Gantoris had valued. But what to do when no one remained to receive them? Luke’s eyes stung, sorrow bitter and clinging, and he dropped his head in his hands. 

_I promised you a world, a safe, lush world where your people would flourish, and…_

Several moments later he sniffed and straightened up with a deep breath, wiping at his face. He would talk to Kam and take a few days. He’d talk it over with Leia and see about what could be used in the commemoration. That was a start. 

Luke stood up and neared the small desk carefully, picking up the largest glass container. It looked like a vase, but larger, the circumference of his palm and as long as his forearm. He wondered if it had some cultural significance among the Eol Sha. 

Dark skittered across the table and Luke instinctively reached out with the glass piece, turning it over and sliding it to cover...a scorpion, about as long as his forefinger. He felt his brow knot as he watched it hit the side of the glass, feeling for an escape, its spindly legs twitching as they fought for purchase and slid down the smooth surface. In the absolute silence Luke thought he could hear the faint thudding of the legs as they slid down the glass again and again. 

The second scorpion he’d seen tonight. 

A sea of scorpions at his feet. The dream flashed in his mind. So many of them. Luke shuddered, looking as the scorpion in its glass cage kept trying to escape. Scorpion infestations were not unheard off in Tatooine, where most varieties were avid climbers. In really bad cases, people had to prop their furniture up on special glass stands. 

But Yavin was nothing like Tatooine. This scorpion was black, not red-brown like the ones back home, no doubt a different species altogether. Dangerous, perhaps. This would be something to bring up with the workers. Luke used the datapad on the bed to cover the bottom of the glass and tipped it. He left the datapad on the table -- he'd come for it later -- and grabbed the glass, steeling himself as he gave the room one last survey. That was enough of a detour. 

There room where Gantoris had died was still waiting for him. 

He had found Gantoris in one of the control rooms in the lower levels. Gantoris had apparently used his new proficiency in the force to break the seals from the blocked off areas, gathering the parts he'd needed from old machinery. 

Luke took the turbolift down there and walked along the access corridor. When he reached the cluster of control rooms, Luke simply passed a hand through the main access panel. The door opened with a hiss, cutting through the air like a whip. 

Room Besh Four. Mid-size. Once it’d been where laser cannon maintenance was done. Given that none of these rooms were in use, the power to them had been switched off to save energy. Luke had left a glowrod beside the door last time he had been here. He picked it up now, and swept it slowly about the room. 

At the far end of the room, there were the computers which housed diagnostic programs. All of them had been thrust to one side of the room. Several storage units filled with parts and precision tools stood beside the door. Luke and Kam had done that. It’d been necessary so they could carry out the body. 

A worktable stood at the center of the room, most of it blackened, chewed up by the flare of heat. Some paces away there was another shelving unit with distended areas where the explosion had melted the metal. Those areas appeared to grow, dripping shadows by the glowrod’s wan light. On the stone floor, the scorch marks from the explosion remained like the jagged teeth of an open mouth. 

The reek of burned flesh had faded, Luke knew that. He smelled it anyway. 

I don't believe in that stuff, Luke thought, trying not think of Gantoris’ smoking body, his rendered flesh, the gruesome image itself weighed down with other grief-sodden memories. To writhe in searing pain as flames melted your skin, sometimes Luke thought that was the most horrible way to die.

Through the Force there were resonances with the substance of a lingering stench, or a stain. Pain...and rage. A soft tap-tap from the glass he held drew his attention. He shone the glowrod to it unthinkingly, and the scorpion inside skittered back, hitting the side of the glass. Luke quickly turned the glowrod away, put it on the table at its highest setting and set the glass down in a shadowy corner. The scorpion still kept trying to climb the glass, its motions distressed, Luke saw its shadow move frantically. 

Beware of the dark side, he’d told his students. 

Gantoris had been angry, it’d smouldered, a molten core within him. Angry to have been born into a life of constant struggle against an inhospitable world. Eol Sha had been a forsaken planet, living under the threat of its own inevitable doom as its moon drew incrementally closer, tidal forces pulling the planet apart. Gantoris had used his talents to help his people eke out a meager living in a torn landscape of fire and ash. He’d told Luke that he thought he and his people been cursed. 

A chill went down Luke's spine. Anger was the handmaiden to despair. 

Without the planet to fight against, what had Gantoris have left? How much value would the promise of self-knowledge have for someone like him, who'd seen so much death and suffering? The shadows here were Luke's own negligence.

The shadow of the scorpion continued moving in a twitchy rhythm.

_A dark man who offers me incredible secrets, then destroys me._

A weapon wouldn’t have given you the peace you sought, Luke thought.

“There’s no death,” Luke said now in the gloom of the darkened room, an echo of when they’d said good-bye to Gantoris. “Only the Force.” 

His words hung in the darkness. You passed on into the Force, Luke thought. To peace. But I’ve been keeping a part of you. I must let it go. 

“Gantoris, I failed you,” he whispered. “And I regret it.” 

An air current passed through his shoulder and Luke’s head snapped to the side. The room was plunged into darkness. 

The glowrod must have gone out. Luke reached to switch it on. 

He found himself shoved hard against the door. Pinned there by a claw-deep hold on his shoulder. He drew on the force-- 

Body immobilized, he couldn't breathe, and his hold on the Force fell away. Luke wanted to raise his hands to his neck, but couldn't. Over the panic muddying his thinking, his mind screamed: I don’t believe in you. I don’t. I don’t. 

The glowrod flickered back on, its light washing over the scorpion, frenetic in its glass prison, legs skittering along the surface as it vainly tried to climb. On the wall of computers behind it, the shadow of its curled tail with its stinger grew larger, resembling a dark and twisted braid. The shadow grew further, black as pitch, heralding the approach of something else. Something that shouldn’t exist. It slid down the the computers like oil slick, onto the stones below, gliding towards Luke. 

Nothing stood outside the Force, Luke thought desperately as the shadow inched towards him. I don’t believe in this. It’s me. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. The dark man is me, just as it was Gantoris in his own dream. 

_I’m_ doing this. I need to stop. 

The shadow disappeared into the blackness of the room as the glowrod flickered off again. Darkness swallowed Luke, his ears popping and his heartbeat suddenly too loud. In that saturated silence, something heavy climbed over him, clutching at the sides of his knees, his hips, his arms, his shoulders with a bruising grip. Luke shut his eyes tight as it pushed him against the unyielding stone of the wall. A low sound escaped him at the bone-chilling cold in the cloying darkness. 

I don't believe in you!

It was like being a child again, quaking in fear, in the throes of an endless nightmare. 

The smell of fire and charred flesh reached his nostrils. 

As if from far away he heard a series of snaps. 

“Malakweya an’ya,” the words left him in a desperate gasp, “Malakweya an’ya. An’ya. An’ya. An’ya. An'ya. An'ya.” 

The grip at his neck tightened before it released. Luke dashed forward in the dark, stumbling, groping for purchase as he went down. Clattering rang out, and some impact burst at the side of his face. Luke careened to his feet, feeling his way out of the room, knee throbbing when he banged it against durasteel shelving. He cracked his shoulder against the side of something else. He had to be at the far end of the room, groping for the walls, realizing as he did that his left hand had gone numb. He scrambled up, needing to get out now. Right now. With a low sound, he finally made out the raised square of the access panel. 

_His whole left arm_ was numb and heavy. Something was pulling it down. With his right hand he hit the access panel, stumbling out, hitting the right wall with the dead weight of his shoulder. It was on him. Yanking him down. 

The floor rushed up. He heard himself fall more than he felt it, a heavy thud.

But Luke couldn’t feel his arms, his legs. Something approached, a blurry form. He was frozen, face down on the ground, unable to feel his body, his other senses growing dim. 

A shadow fell over him. 

He knew nothing else. 

\-- 

Luke awoke with a yell. 

Not his room. Machinery towered around him. Medical machinery. Nothing plugged into him though, he saw, relieved. 

“Luke, Luke. It's fine.” Kam’s voice. His brain felt hazy, faint embarrassment at a distance. He attempted to turn in the direction of the voice, and found his movement slow. Too slow. “You’re in the infirmary.” 

“What happened?” he meant to say, but the words felt too thick. Something was not right within him, and he began to scan within himself through the Force. 

“You were stung,” Kam said as Luke found something definitely wrong, out of place within himself, an alien substance bonded to his cells. He probed it carefully. “You’re dealing with a scorpion sting and you had a bad reaction to it. The toxin will be out of your system soon--” 

Control wasn’t the easiest thing in this state, but Luke closed his eyes and pulled on the Force. Here in the infirmary, the Force answered readily. Luke brought his concentration to bear on that foreign substance, to dispel it. Purging it, moving it outside of himself, he felt a chill break over him, his whole body consumed by shivers. 

“Or you can clear it out,” Luke heard Kam say wryly. To someone else he said, “He’s fine.” 

Another voice. Female. “Surprise.”

Mara.

“You’d think I’d be used to Jedi by now,” the Rodian medic replied as Luke breathes in, checking himself for anything else out of place, ignoring the impulse to crawl under the table in mortified embarrassment. There was nothing faint about it now. “How are you feeling, Master Skywalker?” he asked, offering Luke a washcloth.

“Just Luke,” he slurred, taking the washcloth. He could fix that with more concentration and breathed in. “Thank you,” he said a few moments later and wiped the sweat off himself with the washcloth, frowning when he found red smeared on it.

"You must have bounced off both walls and then some on your way down, before the venom finally made you pass out,” Mara explained. “You have a bloody nose, black eye. Looks like someone beat the shavit out of you.”

“Mara and I found you,” Kam added. ”Maybe ten minutes ago in the main corridor of the lower level -- where the control rooms are.” 

“I was stung?” Luke asked, wanting to recoil. He wasn't sure what had happened, but for _Mara_ to have been there... 

The medic nodded. “Not the only one. We've had a couple of incidents. The lower levels have all sorts of creepy crawlies. Ms. Jade found the scorpion on your tunic.” 

“By your shoulder,” she added. “Blasted thing came right at me. The bite's at the back of your left palm.” 

“Usually humans complain of numbness and pain, but that's it,” the Rodian told him. “Your reaction was a bit stronger. You might have an odd kind of allergy. You have a history of it?” 

Luke shook his head, searched for the medic's name in his mind. “Sorry to have dragged you out of bed, Ganndo.” 

“No need,” he brushed it off. “I'd prefer you stay here for observation. My quarters are on this level, morning is only a few hours away. I’ll check on you then, just in case, and then we can just consider it a sting.” 

Luke nodded. “All right.” 

“Good night then.” The medic exited, pulling the privacy curtains shut, leaving Luke with Kam and Mara. 

“What were you doing in the control rooms at this time of night?” Mara asked 

Luke glanced at Kam, tamping on a wince. Mara had a knack for cutting right into the jugular. Kam shrugged. “She found you first.” 

He made himself look at her. “Solusar helped me haul you here,” she told him before he could give his thanks. "So what happened?" 

Luke's lips tightened. Mara was quite possibly the last person he wanted to give his account to -- particularly because he didn't know exactly what had happened himself. 

She tapped a hand impatiently against her thigh. “Or maybe you could tell us why you were gushing panic into the Force?” 

He felt his eyes widen and threw a stricken look at Kam, who quickly said, “I walled you up. The apprentices are fine.” 

Luke exhaled, perilously close to sagging. It could have been worse. Much worse. “Thanks.” Knowing he needed to provide _some_ explanation, he said, "I went to turn off the lighting controls for the holocam monitors, and that scorpion must have stung me then. I sort of...panicked when I started going numb." 

Kam nodded though Luke knew he was unconvinced. They'd talk tomorrow. Mara too radiated skepticism, but unlike Kam, was far from placid. 

“Can I have a word with Skywalker?” she told Kam. 

Kam closed his eyes, a hand on his temple, weariness in the motion. “I'm going to bed anyway. We'll talk tomorrow, Luke?” 

“Yes. Of course.” Luke nodded. “Good night. Sorry--” 

Kam waved a hand. “Don't. It's fine. Just rest.” With that he vanished behind the curtain. 

Luke wished Mara would go with him. 

“What’s going on? That's some story.” 

He tried for a conciliatory smile. “Mara, it’s been a long night--” 

“You were bleeding panic and in a heap on the ground when I got to you.” She turned around, hugging her arms around herself as if she were cold. "It's...not like you. It didn't even feel..." 

Luke stared down at his left hand, the top of his palm slightly pink. He'd said all he was going to say on the matter. "I'm sorry to have gotten you up," he made himself say. 

Mara made a frustrated sound, and seemed to collect herself. “Look," her voice was softer and Luke's eyes flickered to her face. Her concern was even worse than her irritation, he found himself thinking. "I know the...loss of that apprentice--” 

“It’s okay,” he said to stop her. This was definitely not the moment for pity. He just needed to order his thoughts a little, see what he could make out of his memories. 

Mara was shaking her head, her jaw set. “I thought you were having a difficult time..." Suddenly she asked, "What does ‘ania, ania, ania' mean?" 

He went cold. "What?"

"You were mumbling that when you dropped. Is that Huttese? I’m not familiar with it.”

It’d been _decades_ since he’d heard that phrase. It didn’t exist in Huttese proper. It was not the kind of phrase that would ever be dropped into casual conversation. 

_Bind you_. 

It might not even be Huttese at all.

“Luke?” Mara called. 

“Once they stick to you, you can never rid yourself of the malignant dead,his aunt had said, _You can bind them to another creature, but they always remain.”_

“How?” Luke had asked. 

”Very old words,” she’d said with a smile. “ _Malakweya an’ya_. To a breathing thing, I bind you. But it can't be just anything. My mother would say that when you need it, whatever can bind the malignant dead will find you. Keep your eyes open because it can be as small as a profogg. If it should spit on you, then it's taken your burden."

"Ew," he'd put in, wrinkling his nose. "Doesn't spitting mean the profogg is scared?"

His aunt had smiled. "It could be a kreetle. If it bites you when a malignant dead is bothering you, that means it's helping you. Things like this, they aren't what they seem--that’s the heart of it, Luke. Just make sure nothing happens to the creature because then, the malignant dead will pass on to the person who killed it.” 

“Luke?” Mara’s voice brought him back, tone sharp with concern. “You okay?”

Dread closed around him like a fist.

_I don't believe in this. I don't._

“Luke? You’re really starting to--”

“Mara,” he licked his lips, “what happened to the scorpion?”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts for this one: insomnia, legend, insects, nightmares/sleep paralysis, dreams start to blend into reality.


End file.
